HAPPY NEW YEAR … AND HAND IT OVER!

 The campaign to raise the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) rate in Mammoth was a saga in itself, but here lies the sequel: How does a town go about telling tourists they’ll soon be paying two points more on their bed taxes in the new year? 

The Mammoth Lakes Town Council discussed the dilemma for the first time during its regular meeting on Wednesday evening in Suite Z. The initiative to raise the tax, known as Measure L, was passed by voters on November 5, increasing the TOT rate from 13% to 15%. The town plans to implement the new rate starting January 1. 

In doing so, the Council voted 5-0 to base the tax rate on the date of booking, rather than the payment date, a recommendation detailed in a staff report prepared by Town Manager Rob Patterson. 

“These visits and stays are booked months in advance, and when someone books a stay, they receive a portfolio detailing the cost of that stay,” Patterson said. “We did not want to have to go back to those booked transactions and say, ‘Oh, by the way, because of the town’s increase in rate, you have to pay more money for this visit.’” 

Currently, the Town collects TOT based on the date of departure, so no tax is due until the completion of the stay, according to the staff report. If this rule continued, it would mean that taxes collected on or after the rate change, regardless of the stay dates, would be at the new tax rate. Visits booked prior to the rate change would require additional tax collection for all prepaid transactions. 

This mid-transaction rate change would also create challenges for lodging operations in managing existing bookings to ensure that the proper rate adjustments are made, the staff report states. 

By collection based on the booking date, the Town anticipates it will collect less revenue than owed during this implementation period, but the staff report states that “this loss would be insignificant over the life of the tax measure.” 

“I agree with this completely,” Councilmember Bill Sauser said. “It is the fair thing to do for customers who have already contracted or booked rooms.” 

In the public comment section of the item, John Morris, Chairman of the Mammoth Lakes Lodging Association, said there may be “bumps and bruises” with trying to implement the incremental tax at this time of year, when people are busy with holidays and the town’s traffic is high. 

During this transition period, staff will consider errors during any future audits for potential leniency, Patterson wrote in the report. 

“Staff is not advocating for blanket leniency but the promise of consideration of each instance individually,” he stated. 

One of those bumps: in the case that someone may not have booked the rooms prior to the change, but has a contract for a specific event and a quote, staff will offer the TOT rate as it was originally quoted, with the old 13% rate. 

These instances would be events, such as weddings or ski team events, where the organizer has worked with the lodging operation to occupy several rooms but has not necessarily booked them yet. 

“There are, at least I know of some hoteliers, who have contracts into 2026 that have already been inked, so there may be a few that have those preexisting contracts in place,” Morris said. 

Sauser instructed Patterson and his staff to call such hoteliers to draw up a list of existing contracts so that they may be forgiven directly, and said he didn’t want to write something up where people could “cheat it.” 

Mayor Bubser added that there must be a deadline for such a list, and suggested they make that deadline December 18, the same day as their vote. Patterson said he plans to go through each of the existing contracts with the lodging operations. 

“I’m not too concerned about some sort of a mass process between now and the end of the year just to save the 2%,” he said. 

Sawyer finally filled 

In other news, the 81 units in the first phase of the Parcel, the Sawyer, are finally occupied, Nolan Bobroff, the town’s Community & Economic Development Director announced at the meeting. He had received the notice on Friday. 

“You must be very pleased, you and your team and the entire staff have worked so hard to make that project come to fruition and to think that people are all in for the holidays warms my heart,” Bubser said. 

Buckingham Property Management, the company overseeing the building, began leasing in the new building on Wednesday, Aug. 21, and was originally planning to have the Sawyer fully leased by the end of September